


Nineteen

by DirkDatAssStrider



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6801466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DirkDatAssStrider/pseuds/DirkDatAssStrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bro is forced to grow up too fast when he finds a little baby on the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nineteen

**Author's Note:**

> idk canonly bro is an asshole, he was abusive towards dave, but i've always headcanoned bro's thought process like this.   
> like, maybe the reason he was so distant and such an ass was because he knew about sburb and was just trying to prevent dave from getting too attached to him before he died??
> 
> eh, its a vent fic XD

You’re nineteen when the lil man comes along. 

 

You’re nineteen and a high school dropout. Barely literate. Selling drugs on the street to pay your rent. DJing at clubs occasionally for extra dough. 

 

You’re nineteen and you have no fucking idea how to raise a kid. 

 

It helps that he’s cute as fuck. Big pink flushed cheeks and wide red eyes, with tuffs of white blonde hair swirling on his little head. You especially like it when he wraps his small fingers around yours—comfort when you’re doubting your ability to parent this kid without fucking everything up majorly. 

 

He’s got an awful set of lungs on him, though. Shrill cries slice through the dark of night when you try to sleep, exhausted from a full day of looking after him. You manage to rock him back to slumber with hums and coos, and you don’t quite make it back to your bed. The couch has become your new home.

 

You brave those skeptical and judging stares when you go to the store in search of baby food. He’s strapped to your chest in a harness you borrowed from a neighbor, wiggling like crazy as you stare long and hard at the off brand baby food. It’s good, but you can’t really tell if it’s good enough for your baby. Last thing you wanted was to poison the kid.

 

A woman passes. Scoffs. 

 

You tense with a can of puréed peas in your hand. You know that you look too young to have this kid—shit, you’re a kid yourself. You look like a teenage runaway—shaggy blonde hair and unshaved stubble, old stained tshirt, scuffed sneakers. You burn with embarrassment at the treatment and settle with the high brand baby food for the kid. 

 

===>

 

You’re twenty two when he’s a whopping three years old. 

 

You’re twenty two and you got a better job. It wasn’t great, but it paid the bills and the hours were flexible. You tried your damnedest to keep the kid from figuring out your R rated profession, however. 

 

You gave him a pair of your shades on his birthday. He had burned with excitement at being able to look just like you, but it came with an ulterior motive. You noticed how the daycare workers at the free Christian Daycare were looking at his eyes. 

 

He wasn’t a devil.

 

Sure. You couldn’t say exactly where he came from, but you know he wasn’t a devil. Couldn’t be.

 

You made him promise to never take those glasses off in front of those women. 

 

===>

 

You’re twenty five and he’s six years young. 

 

You’re twenty five and you just started your own business, making X rated plushies for pervs on the internet. It pays well, it’s easy to pay the rent now.

 

Lil man is independent now, or he likes to think he is. He’s surprisingly mouthy, but you don’t mind that. Gotta let him express himself. Least that’s what the parenting mag that you swiped from the dentist’s office seems to say.

 

You get a call from the school. 

 

He’s in first grade. The fuck could he have done in first grade? 

 

Lady at the desk says he hit a kid hard enough to make him bleed. Principal says he’s been expelled, can’t risk having a menace like that in his school. You tell the fatass to suck a cock. 

 

Lil man was sitting in one of those plastic chairs, looking pissed at life. His feet didn’t quite meet the floor, and he kicked them angrily, occasionally scuffing the floor with his sneakers.

 

You sit next to him. 

 

“Rough day, huh, kid?” 

 

“Yeah.” He says simply, looking a little calmer in your presence. 

 

“What happened?”

 

A heat rises to his cheeks and his bottom lip trembles slightly. “They said I was a reject ‘cause I didn’t have any parents.” 

 

You feel shitty. For fucking up so badly and not being able to the kind of guardian he could brag about. 

 

You pat his head and frown. You don’t respond. 

 

Instead, you buy him the biggest thing of applejuice in the store—plus an extra-large pepperoni pizza. 

 

===>

 

He’s eight and you’re twenty seven.

 

You stick a sword in his hands at eight. It’s a dull sword, not gonna do any serious damage unless he wacks someone upon the head with it. He listens to your training like a champ, though, and tries his best to copy your movements. 

 

Maybe someday he’ll need to use it. 

 

===>

He’s nine when you hear from the man.

 

The man just waltzed in your apartment while the kid was at school, plopped himself on your couch, and stared up at you with a wild grin.

 

He was older—salt and peppered hair and a matching ridiculous mustache. He was wearing thick framed glasses and a pair of fucking _cargo pants_ , of all things. He looked like something straight out of National Geographic. His features were wrinkled but handsome, and he felt strangely familiar.

 

You’re kind of gawking.

 

“Mr. Strider, I’ve come to issue a warning!” he says cheerfully, with an odd accent that you can’t place. “I understand that this may sound positively absurd, but in three years, your Dave will play a game…”

 

===>

 

He’s eleven. You’re thirty.

 

He just met a kid on the internet he couldn’t stop jabbering about. You didn’t show your concern outright, but you did do a lot of checkups on this kid in private. Egbert was his name. Seemed like a nice enough kid. 

 

You’re laying on the training thick now. Dave thinks you’re just being an asshole, but you can’t bring yourself to tell him about what that man showed you. You saw it, Dave at thirteen, playing the game that would destroy everything.

 

You can’t shake the feeling of impending doom. 

 

The man said you’d die too, it was your duty to. That had been a punch to your gut because fuck, how could you just bail on him like that? That’s what possessed you to withdraw from interaction, maybe if he didn’t care about you, he wouldn’t be too upset of you died. 

 

It’s a particularly hot day when you whoop his ass in another strife, and he’s bleeding from the forehead. His shades aren’t on and you can see the flash of anger in his blazing red eyes as he ducks back into the building, leaving you alone on the roof.

 

You know he’s going to resent you for this.

 

===>

 

He’s thirteen. You’re thirty two. 

 

He brings up the game of his own volition, and you just nod and buy two copies. One for you, one for him. Just in case he needed a backup. 

 

===>

 

Once the meteors start, you’re scared. You act collected and calm, but inside, you’re terrified. You want to protect this kid, this kid you’ve raised since you were nineteen. 

 

===>

 

You get separated from him. You haven’t worried this much in your life.

 

===>

 

It’s when you meet his feathery, orange spriteself fighting that hideous black dog that you understand the man’s words. It’s your duty to die for him, even if this version isn’t how you remembered. You readily slice a fucking meteor in half to save the kid. 

 

So when that sword catches your middle, you’re not scared. Surprisingly. You’re calm. 

 

You’re ready to die for him. 

 

This kid you raised.

 

The little baby.

 

Your Dave.

 

Nineteen.


End file.
